"According to state law, each municipality must meet its fair share of the need for new housing. This year SCAG prepared the assessment. From 2006-2014 Sierra Madre must create opportunity for 138 new housing units including 82 very low, low and moderate income units. The city does not have to build the houses but it does have to make sure zoning codes allow them to be built if a developer is interested."

This was not greeted as being particularly sunny news by many here, especially in light of the fact that in order to make room for the kind of development SCAG was mandating, existing housing would have to be seized and leveled to create the kind of room necessary to build 138 new "housing units."

"'SCAG not too ceremoniously turned down our request for revision of our numbers,' explained Councilman John Buchanan about his recent appearance with City Attorney Sandra Levin and city staff before the SCAG Appeals Board to request a reduction in the number of housing units allocated to the city ... 'We knew ahead of time that these arguments were probably going to fall on deaf ears,' Buchanan explained."

It should be noted here that John Buchanan did have past service time with SCAG at the time of the ruling. And that Councilman Joe Mosca, who also attended the Appeals Board meeting, had two months earlier begun training at SCAG's Leadership Academy.

So this all sounded pretty final, right? SCAG ruled, and our then city leadership apparently tucked tail and accepted this ruling as an unshakable finality.

But now it appears that, under appeals put out by our current city leadership, Sierra Madre's RHNA numbers weren't quite so final as first assumed. Word out of Sacramento has it that SCAG's RHNA #s for Sierra Madre were somehow calculated incorrectly. And that our numbers could be drastically reduced, perhaps by as much as 50%! And at 50% current "granny housing" could very well be adequate to accommodate required low income housing, obviating the necessity for the kinds of dislocations new high density housing would bring.

5 comments:

Yippie! I sure hope this is true.If it is, you all can thank Mayor Kurt Zimmerman, Mayor Pro-tem MaryAnn MacGillvrey and Councilman Don Watts!They have been working very hard to lower these unrealistic numbers.

Why am I not surprised about this reduction? And why am I not surprised that this is the only news outlet in Southern California that will carry this information? Because it's all part of the development hype that has run Southern California for about 50 years now. Prosperity through unregulated growth. And to show those little individual towns that were created to take control of their own land use decisions, we'll create a fiction called SCAG and give it some government discretion to impose development requirements as a condition of funding, etc. And add to that general scenario the fact that (sorry to mention this same old name, but . . . ) Bart Doyle was the City's representative to SCAG at the time these numbers went up so high. With the influence of those trying to make the town work as it is rather than build ourselves to prosperity, it's likely that all kinds of "mistakes" will be identified. Good work.

A city's wealth is not determined by the number of housing units or density per se. A city's wealth is typically determined by the amount of property taxes that it collects along with sound financial decision-making by it's elected and appointed representatives.

As more and more cities in Southern California, and more specifically, around Sierra Madre, go about increasing density; a low-density city becomes more desirable to affluent members of society seeking to escape from traffic, crime and noise pollution. Therefore, in the long run, property values increase and drive up the amount of property tax revenues collected by the city.

Not to digress too far, the real fight is between "get-rich-quickers" living in and outside of Sierra Madre, and everyone else that views their house as a home and long-term investment.

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"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

"What we call civilized society is in reality a vast insane asylum held together at the points of guns." - Vito Caporale

"In our civilization, and under our form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office." - Ambrose Bierce

"It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them." - Mark Twain

"I would rather lose in a cause that will someday win, than win in a cause that will someday lose." - Woodrow Wilson

"The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare." - Daniel P. Moynihan

"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you." - Will Rogers

"My experience in government is that when things are non-controversial and beautifully coordinated, there is not much going on." - John F. Kennedy

"Ask not what the government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't. - Gerhard Kocher

"The best minds in government? If any were, business would hire them away." - Ronald Reagan

"Government is not the doctor. It is the disease." - H.S. Ferns

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." - Edward Abbey

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - Henry Luis Mencken

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

"The most important political office is that of private citizen." - Louis Brandeis

"Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what it is you think you want to hear." - Alan Coren

"You don't pay taxes - they take taxes." - Chris Rock

Readings

"Take stock of those around you and you will ... hear them talk in precise terms about themselves and their surroundings, which would seem to point to them having ideas on the matter. But start to analyse those ideas and you will find that they hardly reflect in any way the reality to which they appear to refer, and if you go deeper you will discover that there is not even an attempt to adjust the ideas to this reality. Quite the contrary: through these notions the individual is trying to cut off any personal vision of reality, of his own very life. For life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost. The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it over with a curtain of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his 'ideas' are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality." - Jose Ortega y Gasset

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced." - Soren Kierkegaard

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